Good For You

Sermon Transcript

What do you do when you hit a rut in life? Sometimes sports teams hit a rut. They spend some money, make a big draft pick, pull off a trade, and a few years in, they’re still kinda mediocre. And sometimes, that’s just where they stay until they eventually get worse. Companies hit ruts; earnings get stagnant, no real new product, employees not super excited about coming to work, and so on. And maybe you say, “Exactly; I never want my life to get like that,” but I’m only 37 and I’ve already seen enough life to tell you that at some point in your life, you too will hit a rut. If you somehow haven’t already, it’s coming. And one of the big questions you will have to face is a similar question to the one a sports team or a company has to face when they hit a rut: Can it get better? Is this it, do I just keep going like this until I die, or can it get better?

 

The passage on which we’re focusing in the book of Proverbs today holds out to us the possibility of better life. It holds out to you and me things like these: Length of days, years of life, and peace; favor and good success in the sight of God and man; healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones; barns filled with plenty, and vats bursting with wine. If you take the question, “Can it get better?” to Proverbs 3:1-12, the answer is a resounding yes. And the way it tells us that your life can actually get better is by living by God’s wisdom, because, as it turns out, God’s wisdom is for your good. So live by God’s wisdom because it is for your good, and we’ll see in this passage 4 ways to do so: Internalize it, trust it, let it order your finances, and let it correct you.

 

Internalize it

 

Our passage begins with the command from Solomon to his son to not forget his teaching, but rather to let his heart keep his commandments. Last week we looked at the acquisition of wisdom we might say—seeking it out. Now he’s saying once you get it, don’t forget it. Interestingly, though, in the second half of verse 1, when he presents the contrast, he doesn’t say, “but remember it.” The contrast with forgetting is letting your heart keep my commandments. That word translated keep can also be translated guard, so that the idea is something like to get them so deep down into your heart that no temptation, no suffering, no passage of time can rip them out of there. In other words, internalize them in such a way that you not only don’t forget them, but do them, and do them from the heart.

 

Let’s do another random proverb exercise like I did in the first sermon of this series; with this I just flip ahead in Proverbs during my sermon prep and use the first one my eyes see. This time it was “A king’s wrath is a messenger of death, and a wise man will appease it” (Prov 16:14). What’s the command there? It’s basically when a king is angry, or to put it into our context, a government official or a boss or someone with authority over you, when some such person is angry, whatever the reason, let your first inclination be to appease that anger. What might you do with such wisdom? You might forget it, and next time someone in authority over you gets angry, you just add fuel to the fire by clapping back at them, and maybe you get arrested or lose your job. That’s foolish. Or, you might remember it, but only obey it externally. So you talk nice to your boss and keep your job, but then you go home and rant about how ridiculous they are to your roommate. What happened there? You kept the commandment in a sense, but you didn’t let your heart keep it. You didn’t internalize it. What might it look like to let your heart keep such a commandment? It might look like not only speaking gently to your boss, but seeking to understand why he or she is so upset, identifying a way you could do something to help address the issue he or she is facing, and then going home and asking your roommate if you could take some time to pray for your boss tonight, because it seems like he or she is having a hard time right now. You know it’s really deep down inside your heart when that actually starts to become your instinct, when you don’t have to go through the whole “Ugh I hate this, but I do remember Proverbs 16:14, so I need to respond with kindness, etc.” but your first instinct is actually, “Wow; I wonder how I can help. I need to pray for him or her,” etc.

 

Maybe you aren’t there yet; I know I’m not, but it’s worth putting forth effort to grow in that kind of internalized wisdom because throughout this passage we are going to see in each section why the way of wisdom is good for us. In this case, verse 2 says it’s because “length of days and years of life and peace they will add to you.” Guess what kings tend not to do with those who appease their anger? Kill them. Guess what bosses tend not to do with employees who respond to their anger with gentle words, solutions, and prayers? Fire them. Verse 2 isn’t saying that if you internalize God’s wisdom you won’t get cancer or get hit by a car, but it is saying that in general, if you internalize God’s wisdom, other things being equal, you will live longer than someone who rejects it, because remember what wisdom is? It’s the art of perceiving reality and living in accordance with it. The reality is the king’s anger is a messenger of death, and if you live in accordance with that reality by appeasing it, length of days and years of life it will add to you. Not only that, it will add peace to you verse 2 says! Those long days will be peaceful days. Let’s take the boss example again: Imagine the person who tells off their boss in response to the boss’ anger and the person who responds gently, tries to solve the problem, and prays for their boss. Who do you think goes to bed with more peace that night? I remember a non-Christian friend of mine telling me about the time he finally did it: He told off the boss and said he was quitting. It felt great…until that night. I watched for the next week as he was racked with anxiety, hating himself for losing his cool like that, and wondering whether he was going to be able to keep his job. Internalize God’s wisdom, and it will generally bring you a longer and more peaceful life.

 

To really internalize wisdom basically yields verse 3: Steadfast love and faithfulness. If you were here a couple weeks ago when Mike McKinley preached, he preached from Matt 9:9-13, which includes these words: I desire mercy, not sacrifice. What’s the essence of God’s wisdom, God’s commandment, if you internalize it? Mercy, a word translating the Old Testament word we have here translated steadfast love. What does God ultimately want from us? A heart of steadfast love, a faithful heart. So in verse 3 we read to let them not forsake you. Bind them around your neck, and again, note the internal: Write them on the tablet of your heart. Here’s the big things to remember beneath all the specific Proverbs, if you really want to boil down God’s wisdom, here’s how to live: Love people from the heart, and be faithful to God’s covenant from the heart. What’s the essence of “A king’s wrath is a messenger of death, and a wise man will appease it?” Love the king. He’s an image of God. Have mercy on the king, even though his anger may be irrational. And be faithful to your God. He put the king in your life, “for there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God” (Rom 13:1).

 

And the promise in verse 4 is similar to the promise of verse 2: So you will find favor and good success in the sight of God and man. God will be pleased with your heart of love and faithfulness to him, and generally, you’ll be the kind of employee people want around the office, the kind of citizen government officials are glad to have in their city, and so on. Live by God’s wisdom because it’s for your good first by internalizing it. And second, live by God’s wisdom because it’s for your good by trusting it.

 

Trust it

 

Verses 5-6 are probably the most famous verses in the whole book of Proverbs, so let me just read them again: “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.” Why should we trust God’s wisdom? Because ultimately we are trusting God himself. There are two attributes of God that make him eminently worthy of our trust: His omniscience and his truth. Omniscience is from two Latin words that mean “all knowing”. God knows everything. But we also trust God because he is truth; he never lies. Titus 1:2 describes God as God, who never lies, or more woodenly even, as “the unlying God.” So if God knows everything, and God never lies, what possible reason could there be not to trust him? What possible reason could there be not to trust him with all your heart? Some Proverbs you will probably hear and think, “oh yeah; that makes sense; no problem trusting God there.” But what happens when you hit the ones that make you say, “Wait what? It can’t really mean that, can it?” What you do with those reveals whether you are actually trusting the LORD with all your heart, or whether, to some extent, you are, as the contrast of verse 5 says, leaning on your own understanding.

 

The leaning imagery is helpful; it’s an image of trust. When you lean on something, why do you do it? You trust it to support your weight. When your doctor says here’s your issue, and here’s what you need to do if you want to live: Spend an exorbitant amount of money to let a complete stranger put a knife into you and play around with your organs, why do most people do it? They trust their doctor. They are leaning, in this case, on her understanding, and when it comes to medical choices, that’s generally wise. When it comes to life more broadly though, Proverbs is saying don’t do that with your own understanding. Instead, lean all your weight, all your heart it says, on the LORD, the one who knows all things and never lies. To use Ray Ortlund’s imagery, Proverbs 3:5 is telling you to do a belly flop onto the LORD. Throw all your weight on him. If you only receive the Proverbs with which you already agree, you are still leaning on your own understanding. You are, in the words of verse 7, wise in your own eyes.

 

But when you come to the ones that make you say, “Wait what?” what does trusting in the LORD with all your heart look like? Start by reminding yourself who it is that is speaking here. These are God’s very words, and this God is the God who knows all things, and who never lies. So step 1 is don’t dismiss the Proverb. The next step is working prayerfully to understand it. We saw that last week, right? “Call out for insight, raise your voice for understanding” (Prov 2:3). Ask God to reveal the meaning of the passage, read it slowly and carefully, compare it to other Proverbs, ask a pastor, ask your Citygroup, read a trusted commentary. You have to understand what God actually meant to say in order to trust it with all your heart. That’s the goal with any Proverb and honestly with any passage of scripture: Understand what God intended to say in it, so that if you were to restate it and God himself were to hear you, he’d say, “Yep; that’s what I meant to say.” Once you get to what it actually means, trusting the LORD with all your heart means adopting what he says as your own perception of reality and living in accordance with it.

 

And it means not leaning on your own understanding. Let me speak for a moment to the two most common ways I see people lean on their own understanding rather than trusting in the LORD with all their heart when it comes to the Bible and especially to Proverbs. The first way is by trusting in another “expert”. So this is like the patient who says to the doctor, “Well I read something different on WebMD.” And look, your doctor isn’t omniscient, and some doctors do lie, so maybe 1/100 your WebMD research will yield a better path forward than your doctor, but that’s never the case with the LORD who is omniscient and never lies! So to read a Proverb and say, “Well peer-reviewed journals have shown this approach actually isn’t best” or “I took a class in college and my professor was really clear that you shouldn’t do it that way” is to lean on your own understanding. To put it simply, that is foolish. In many of those cases, give it 10, 20, maybe 30 years, and all the journal articles will be saying that one you trusted over God’s very word was wrong anyway. Trusting in another expert is one way we lean on our own understanding rather than trusting in the LORD with all our hearts.

 

The other most common way I see is by trusting in our interpretation of our own experiences. This most commonly sounds like, “I tried that and it didn’t work.” Do you see what you’re saying to God when you say that to one of his proverbs? “God, I know you know everything and never lie and you say this is reality and how to live in accordance with it, but I ran the experiment myself, and my result was that what you said didn’t work.” Really? That’s foolish. It misses that your results aren’t bare results; they’re interpreted results. You’re not pitting reality against God’s Word; you’re pitting your interpretation of reality against God’s Word, and why lean on your interpretation? Furthermore, you have a very limited data set. We often say stuff like that after running the experiment once for like, a day. Can you believe that God has a little more data than that, like the author knows where the story is going while you’re on page 6 drawing conclusions about the ending? You should never let, “I tried that and it didn’t work” lead you to conclude that any of God’s words can be safely dismissed or ignored. If it feels like God’s wisdom isn’t working, there are multiple explanations of that, none of which include that God’s wisdom simply doesn’t apply to your situation. One possibility is that you misunderstood the Proverb. Another is that you misapplied it. Another is that you had a false expectation of what “working” would look like. And another possibility, probably the most common one actually, is that you’re doing exactly what God wants you to do, and you just need to be patient, trusting him that eventually, in his timing and by his standards, it will work. Don’t go for a run, step on the scale when you get back, and say, “Well that didn’t work.” Go for another run, and then another run, and then another run, and a year later, step on the scale.

 

We can trust God’s wisdom like this because he knows all things, he never lies, and once again, verse 8: It’s for your good! It will work! It will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones. Living by God’s wisdom doesn’t just mean long life, or even peaceful life; it means full life! As you grow in the art of perceiving reality and living in accordance with it by trusting in God’s wisdom and leaning not on your own understanding, you start to want to get out of bed in the morning! And to see that we don’t have to continue the random Proverb exercise, because this passage itself gives us a specific example: Your money. The third way to live by God’s wisdom because it’s for your good is to let it order your finances.

 

Let it order your finances

 

Verse 9 tells us to honor the LORD with our wealth and with the firstfruits of all our produce. Ancient Israel in the time of Solomon was a largely agrarian society, so your produce, what you grew on your farm, was your wealth. With it you fed yourself and your family if you had one, and with the rest you could take it to the market to sell or trade for other food or other items necessary for you and your family’s survival. If the LORD prospered you, you could even hire servants who you would also feed from the crops and pay with the money those crops generated. Ok, so what’s this verse telling you to do? It’s telling you to honor the LORD with it, especially with the firstfruits.

 

That doesn’t come out of nowhere. In an earlier part of the Bible, Exodus 23, when God first gave the people of Israel his law, here’s one of the commandments he gave: “The best of the firstfruits of your ground you shall bring into the house of the Lord your God” (Exod 23:19). In Solomon’s day, the house of the Lord your God was the temple, and when produce was brought to the house of the Lord, it was used in three basic ways: First, some of it was offered directly to the Lord by being burned as part of the sacrificial system. Second, some of it was eaten by the priests who did the work of the temple. Third, some of it was distributed to the materially poor in the land. But you didn’t handle that part. The part of the normal Israelite was to simply take the firstfruits of their crop at harvest time, bring them to the house of the LORD, and leave them there in the hands of the priest (Lev 23:10-11, Deut 26:2-3). And what were the firstfruits? The firstfruits were the first part of the crop to be harvested.

 

So imagine this: You’re an ancient Israelite citizen, and your farm is the way you feed yourself and your family as well as the way you generate wealth. So in late summer, you start plowing your soil, removing weeds, and getting ready to plant. Then in the fall you plant your wheat. As it gets colder over the winter, the root system is developing, but there is very little visible fruit. In the spring growth begins to occur more actively. By late spring to early summer the plants finally flower and the grain heads begin to develop seeds. During this phase in particular I’m told that the plants need water and nutrients to fill the grain heads with seeds, so you’re praying like crazy for God to bring the right amount of rain. By late summer the grain heads ripen and change color from green to golden brown as they dry out, the grain kernels harden, and they’re ready to harvest. Then you and your workers go out and work long days to cut the grain stalks, and after that year of farming, praying, and working, what do you think you’d want to do with those first stalks? Process them and eat them, right? Process them and sell them, so you can finally make some money off them. Maybe even feed your workers with them. And yet what this passage is telling you to do is to take that first bundle of them, the best of what you harvest, take it to the house of the LORD, and leave it there with some priests, never to be yours again.

 

Does that seem wise to you? Does that seem like it will be good for you? Verse 10 follows and says: Then your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will be bursting with wine. Honor the LORD with your wealth and the firstfruits of all your produce, give it away to him, and he will make sure your barn not only does not run out, but is full, and that your vats are bursting with wine. Do you trust God that that’s true? Let’s make sure we understand it first. Is this verse teaching what we now commonly refer to as the “prosperity gospel,” the idea that as you grow in faithfulness to God you will also grow in health, wealth, and prosperity? No; it’s not. That is a false gospel that cannot save. Even the church father John Chrysostom, writing over a thousand years before the advent of the modern prosperity gospel, said this about verse 10: “Note his reference to a great amount of wealth, not composed of gold, not of clothing, superfluous and foolish things used for display and self-promotion, but what is useful and necessary, making a contribution to us and being suited to life here.” So even in its original context, notice that it doesn’t mean ostentatious wealth like we’d think of: Yachts, multiple vacation homes, designer suits, private club memberships, and fine dining.

 

Furthermore, its original context is within the covenant God made with Israel under Moses, which did include unique land promises. Listen to this from Deuteronomy 28: “If you faithfully obey the voice of the LORD your God…All these blessings shall come upon you…Blessed shall be the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground and the fruit of your cattle…blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl…The LORD will command the blessing on you in your barns and in all that you undertake…The LORD will open to you his good treasury, the heavens, to give the rain to your land in its season and to bless all the work of your hands” (Deut 28:1-12, selected portions). We don’t find those kinds of promises under the New Covenant, the covenant under which we now live as God’s people. Instead, we find better promises (Heb 8:6) that extend beyond a land of earthly blessing to a heavenly inheritance. Those blessings of Deuteronomy 28 sound great, but guess what? A few generations after Solomon, Israel lost them all. So Jesus tells us, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, 20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal” (Matt 6:19-20).

 

You can’t put your literal money into the invisible heavenly realm though, so where do you take it? How do you honor the LORD with your wealth and with the firstfruits of all your produce? Here’s what Jesus’ first followers did: “for as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold and laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need” (Acts 4:34-35). They gave it to the church, which the Bible describes as the household of God (1 Tim 3:15) and the apostles, the church leaders of that time, did with it what the priests of the Old Testament did: Distributed it. So how do you, how do you and I honor the LORD with your wealth and with the firstfruits of all your produce? You take the first of what you earn, and before you pay the government your taxes, before you feed yourself and your family, before you pay your rent or mortgage, you give it to your local church.

 

You say, “Well now that doesn’t seem like the way to get rich. My neighbors don’t give their money away and they live in nicer houses than I do,” and there’s a sense in which you’re right: The promise never was wealth as we often think of it in materialistic terms. But it is for your good. Even under the New Covenant, God’s people often do find that when they prioritize giving to their local church, God finds ways to provide for them above and beyond what they expected. And under the New Covenant, there are actually more ways for God to do good to you! Now not only may God respond to your giving by providing for your material needs, but God may and often does actually grow you in godly character through your giving. He fills you with more of the fruit of the Spirit. And, ultimately, as Jesus points out, God will give you a heavenly reward that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, unlike even bull barns and vats bursting with wine. Live by God’s wisdom by letting it order your finances because that too is for your good. And finally, live by God’s wisdom by letting it correct you.

 

Let it correct you

 

So we come finally to verses 11-12, where we read Solomon’s final instruction to his son in this section: Do not despise the LORD’s discipline nor be weary of his reproof. Thus far in this passage we’ve read of length of days, years of life, and peace. We’ve read of favor and good success in the sight of God and man. We’ve read of healing to our flesh and refreshment to our bones, barns filled with plenty and vats bursting with wine, things most people would not despise or grow weary of, but now we come to verse 11 and encounter something we might be tempted to despise or grow weary of: The LORD’s discipline and reproof. Scripture elsewhere tells us that for the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant (Heb 11:11). Kids in the room, you know this don’t you? When your parents discipline you, do you ever think in the moment, “Wow; this is great. It’s like healing to my flesh and refreshment to my bones?” Of course not.

 

Well this passage is telling us that God disciplines his children like that. There is no “if” in verse 11. Solomon assumes that the LORD’s discipline will come in his son’s life, and in ours, so he gets right to telling us how to respond to it. The LORD’s discipline or reproof can come to us in two basic ways: Through his words, or through his actions. His words of correction we’ve already talked about; that’s like when you come across a proverb with which you don’t already agree. The whole Bible in fact is profitable not only for teaching, but for reproof, and for correction (2 Tim 3:16). One of the ways you live by God’s wisdom is when you encounter scripture that contradicts what you already believed, you change your belief, rather than trying to change the scripture. You do not despise it, or grow weary of it; you accept it and submit to it.

 

But probably more what’s in view here is God’s discipline that comes to us through painful action on God’s part. The classic Old Testament example of this actually comes after the time of Solomon when God sent Israel into exile for their persistent rebellion against him. He sent a foreign nation, Babylon, against them, and they killed many of them, destroyed their temple, and removed them from their land. Sounds painful, right? Other more garden variety ways we might say this comes out in our individual lives is when, as children, God disciplines us through our parents’ discipline. Kids here today, when you disobey your parents, you are disobeying God, not because your parents are God, but because God requires you to obey your parents. If they then discipline you for doing that, you should receive that as God’s discipline. They are instruments in God’s hands, and parents, let that direct your discipline of your children. Discipline should never be about venting your anger, but about representing God to your children.

 

Other agents of God’s discipline that we see in the Bible include governments and churches. Another pastor recently told me the story of his young adult son who got a DUI and spent a week in jail for it. And praise God, this man received it as God’s discipline and repented. When you face legal consequences for your sin, receive it as God’s discipline. Church discipline can look like a brother or sister simply coming to you and telling you a painful truth about something you did, showing you how it was sinful, or it can go as far as an entire church removing you from membership if you are engaged in serious, observable, unrepentant sin. I’ll never forget the day a man we excommunicated years ago called me and told me that he was sorry and that he wanted to repent. When you face church discipline for your sin, receive it as God’s discipline. And, other times, God may use no agent at all. He may just bring painful circumstances into your life as a consequence for your sin, or to pull your heart off some treasured idol that you’ve been worshiping for too long. When those things happen, receive them as God’s discipline.

 

And do not despise the discipline or become weary of it. To despise discipline is to fight it. It’s when your parents discipline you and instead of saying, “I’m sorry I disobeyed you; I was wrong; will you forgive me?” you yell at them, insult them, or hit them. It’s when the government tries to prosecute you and instead of pleading guilty and serving your time, you lie to beat the charges or violate your parole. It’s when the church tries to discipline you and instead of confessing and repenting, you utter all kinds of evil against the church. It’s when God brings hardship into your life, and instead of looking for how he wants to change you through it, you grumble about it and expend all your energy trying to change it. That’s despising discipline. Don’t do it. But then there’s also growing weary of it. Instead of fighting back, this is more like giving up. This is more like avoiding your parents, forsaking the church, and keeping your distance from the LORD to just wallow in despair. Don’t do that either.

 

Why? Because, verse 12: Even this is for your good. The LORD reproves him whom he loves, as a father the son in whom he delights. You know why the LORD disciplines you? Because you actually matter to him. You know what fathers don’t discipline their sons? Fathers who don’t care about their sons. If you didn’t matter to the LORD, he’d just let you go on your merry way to hell. But instead he disciplines you for your good precisely because he loves you, precisely because he wants you to enjoy length of days and years of life, peace, favor and good success in the sight of God and man, healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones, barns filled with plenty and vats bursting with wine, and he knows that if he just leaves you and me to ourselves, we’ll spiral off into folly!

 

While we’re on this point, let me just ask a couple questions: Parents, if you won’t discipline your children because doing so doesn’t feel loving to you, what are you communicating to your children about God, given that God clearly does discipline his children? If you communicate by your actions that painful discipline is unloving, do you see how you are communicating that God is unloving, since he does in fact discipline his children in a way that in the moment, is painful rather than pleasant? Church, if we won’t discipline an unrepentant member because it makes us feel unloving, what are we communicating to that member and even to one another and the world about God? How is such a refusal anything other than leaning on our own understanding?

 

Living by God’s wisdom means letting it correct you rather than despising or growing weary of it, but hopefully you see now that the only way to really do that is to trust him that it’s for your good. I said earlier we can trust God because he’s omniscient and he never lies, but there really is a third element, which is perhaps the key element, in why we can trust God, and it’s the one right there in our last verse: He loves us, like a father loves a son in whom he delights. And we know he loves us because he had a son in whom he delighted eternally, and on the cross, he gave him up for us all. How can you know when God brings pain into your life that he’s not doing it to condemn you, but to discipline you for your good? Because on the cross Jesus Christ was condemned for the sins of all who would ever turn from their sins and believe in him, so that there is now no condemnation left for those who are in him. If God did that for you, can you really doubt that he loves you? If he was willing to bear such unspeakable pain for you, can you really doubt that whatever pain he inflicts on you is for your good? And if Christ is now risen from the dead, as he is, can you really doubt that all who are in him will not only experience length of days and year of life but eternal days and eternal life? Trust in Christ with all your heart, do a belly flop on to him and on to his righteousness, lean not on any of your own goodness, and healing will come to your flesh and refreshment to your bones will come when your body is resurrected to live with him in a new heavens and a new earth, where the barns are filled with plenty, and the vats burst with wine.

 

Live by God’s wisdom because it really is for your good. Internalize it, trust it, let it order your finances, let it correct you, and your life in this world really can get better, and your life in the world to come will be the best.